A Heart Enslaved
by amber-goddess
Summary: A Jareth/Sarah fic (oh my, how original...:s) Long after his defeat, Jareth continues to visit Sarah, contemplating how he feels towards her....


Disclaimer: I own nothing, so don't bother suing. It won't get you anything.  
  
Authors note: Boy, its been a looong time since I watched the Labyrinth! Then I stumbled across a fanfic while on the net and I remembered how much I loved that movie - particularly the smoldering Jareth! The memory inspired me to write this fanfic. Hope y'all enjoy!  
  
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"...do as I say and I will be your slave." - Jareth  
  
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I watch.  
  
She seems unaware of my presence as she sleeps. Gone is the fierce defiance with which she looked at me in the Labyrinth, replaced with an expression of unconscious peace. Her lips curve softly upwards as she dreams, a sweet and gentle smile such as she would never bring herself to cast upon me. Hair falls in rich brown waves over the pillow and, for a moment, I am tempted to reach out and stroke it. I resist the urge. If I touched her, that might mean something, and I might be forced to confront these feelings that burn within me. As it is, I merely observe. Cool, calculated, and safely distant from her.  
  
Why do I continue to come here after all this time? It makes no sense, and yet I already know the answer. She draws me to her, even from the vast distances between our worlds. Like a beacon she shines against the darkness, a burning light that I know only I can see. Her lure is impossible to resist, and night after night I find myself standing by her bedside...watching. Watching is all I can do now.  
  
She sighs and shifts slightly against the bed. The moonlight shimmers in from the open window, casting a pale patch of silver over her eyes, warm summer breeze winging in to make the curtains to flutter lightly. She is impossibly pale against the surrounding darkness. Magical almost. How ironic that she has searched her whole life for enchantment when all she needed to do was take a step back and examine her reflection in a mirror. She holds more beauty than I have witnessed from an infinity within the fairy realm. I tried to make her understand this once, a long time ago, but she could not see. She never will. For all my efforts, she remains almost oblivious to her true nature. Such a pity. Such a waste.  
  
I watch her even now that she is far from my realm. I see her walk to and from school, devoting her life to the words of fools. She eats, she sleeps, she studies, she exists. Oh, but I would have offered her so much more! I would have made her my queen within a heartbeat...anything she had ever desired I would have provided for her, and I would have treasured her with every swell of my twisted soul.  
  
And yet she chose...this. This monotonous, drab nothingness.  
  
I would laugh were it not so utterly tragic.  
  
They do not deserve her, these pathetic mortals. She is so much better than they. Why does she allow herself to get caught up in their trivialities? Can she really enjoy such normality? Such conformity? I do not think so. Even now her eyes still burn, her spirit yearning to fly free.  
  
Will it always be like this for her, I wonder, or will the life she has chosen for herself eventually wear her down. That spark of fire that first entranced me...will it be extinguished forever? The thought pains me strangely as my mind plays out prophetic scenarios. No doubt she will settle for a human male unworthy of her, surrendering that long-prized virginity in the backseat of his father's pickup truck. Then there will be the inevitable squawking brats, the hurried wedding, the grimy little house...and she, like so many a promising young girl before her, will be lost to the path of the abandoned teenage mother.  
  
I try to smile and the thought, but somehow it dies on my lips. The truth is, I do not want that for her. I want to see her fill her potential...I want to see her become all that she can be. I want...I want...  
  
Oh Heaven and Earth! How does she do this to me?!  
  
I snarl quietly to myself, fingers working rhythmically at turning the crystal balls over in my hands. Her dreams. She has not yet let go of them, and neither have I. They have come to be my dreams to, both of us sharing the same deep yearnings even across so great a distance. No doubt she would laugh if she knew, but it is the truth. They ceased to belong solely to her a long time ago. Now they are ours - hers and mine - a subtle connection of minds borne from our twin needs. They are dreams that are destined to go unfulfilled, however, and I know that, even were I to offer them to her once more, she would still refuse me.  
  
Bitch.  
  
I close my eyes in an attempt to clear my cluttered thoughts. It is an impossible endeavor. I live in a world of illogic, but the feelings she invokes within me go beyond any uncertainty I have ever felt before. I loathe her and yet I desire her...she infuriates me and yet I admire her. So many delicious contradictions within one perfect girl. Despite the confusion she brings me, I know that, now that she is in my life, I will never be able to bring myself to leave her. She is everything to me, even if I am nothing to her. I'll be the shadow at her side till the day she dies, and I'll follow her wherever she journeys thereafter.  
  
But I can't...I *won't* say love.  
  
Love has no place within the goblin realm. It is a shallow and fickle term, of no use to neither me nor my people. I am infatuated with her...I desire her...but love? My cold heart should not even consider it - the very idea is laughable.  
  
And yet...and yet...  
  
I allow my eyes to open slowly. I am standing in the darkness beside the window, arms folded across my chest, staring down at the sleeping form on the bed. Softly, tentatively, I creep forward. She continues to breath deeply, unaware of my presence as I loom over her. She is a beautiful little creature - I have known that since the beginning - but it is so painful apparent at that moment that it makes the very breath catch in my throat. The longing to own her, to posses her, momentarily enslaves my senses and I reach out to touch her cheek. She is soft, as I knew she would be, but the heat of her skin takes me by surprise. She's so warm I feel like I'm caressing flames. Perhaps I am. I'm burning for her...I always have been. She is the fire that melts my cold soul.  
  
I lean down gradually until my head hovers just above hers. I reverently allow my lips to brush against her ear - a touch so gentle it would have felt like the graze of a butterfly wing to her. The brief contact of skin is like a blissful torture all of its own as my conflicting veneration and craving tearing me inwardly apart. I rest there for a moment, wishing that the moment could last for an eternity but being all too aware that it would not. Then, finally, I move away. Away from the bed, away from the warmth...away from her.  
  
Climbing onto the window-ledge I cast her a final lingering glance over my shoulder. She continues to sleep, oblivious to my torment. Perhaps it is for the best. No doubt she would not welcome my presence, and I have no wish to impose myself into her life once more. I can only wait, and watch, and hope. And love. Oh yes, and love. There can be no uncertainty as to how I am feeling now. And that, I realize, is what has enslaved me. I ceased to be the Goblin King the day she refused my power. Now I am nothing but her slave, a mere shadow to follow her to the end of time. And strangely, I am content that it is so. She has brought my life purpose such as it never had before.  
  
I shall continue to exist for her alone.  
  
Smiling, I throw myself out onto the mercy of the wind, feeling the undercurrent catch my newly formed wings. As an owl I glide away on the glittering moonlight, knowing that I will return the next night, and the night after that, and the night after that, until the stars themselves burn out and the earth crumbles to dust.  
  
I am hers, now and forever...and I would not wish it any other way. 


End file.
